


Reminder

by youlostpleiad



Series: Tell Me All The Ways To Love you [3]
Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, also bake off, basically henry is a little cinnamon roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24988300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlostpleiad/pseuds/youlostpleiad
Summary: Alex has a bad day at work.Henry does what he knows best.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Series: Tell Me All The Ways To Love you [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686073
Comments: 22
Kudos: 196





	Reminder

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in 2025 and I guess they haven't gotten married yet since the last one sorry...  
> All the thank yous to [Cossette](https://jostenminyards.tumblr.com/) for beta reading this for me 💕💕💕

Most days he takes it just fine. Really, he does. Maybe when he started the job he had higher expectations but he's at the point where he'll take just about any win he can get. But it stings. It really fucking stings because somehow Alex hasn't lost track of his big ideas and his big dumb heart. Somehow he still believes there's good in the world and that he can bring some of it out. But he's tired.

He went to court today and he didn't lose. He got his client an okay settlement. More than what they were expecting. He should be happy. But he doesn't feel like he won. 

Here's what he hates about being a civil rights lawyer: people don’t take pride in bigotry. Sometimes he's out there and it doesn't matter that he's Alex Claremont-Diaz, who for eight straight years and through an international "sex" scandal held the highest approval ratings of the entire First Family. It doesn't matter that he worked his ass off in Law School (no really, he spent so much time sitting, hunched over textbooks and his laptop that after he passed the bar, he had to join a gym to regain what mother nature had so graciously given him in the first place. He was sweaty. For weeks. It was awful, he can’t pull sweaty off like Henry.) It doesn't matter that the people he's representing have been discriminated against. It doesn't matter that each and every time he's fighting for someone who deserves better. 

In the end, what counts is a judge who doesn't want to be labelled racist or sexist or homophobic. But who really doesn't actually see any of Alex's clients' claims as legitimate. So they'll look at a person who more often than not has been exploited by a million-dollar corporation, harassed by an asshole boss, made into a joke simply because they existed as themselves in their work environment, and decide that the damage made to this actual human being's mental health, to their lives and the way they see themselves is worth twenty to fifty thousand, never more. Even though the companies often make millions, even though this specific time he knows the CEO of the company gets a quarterly bonus of a few hundred thousand, on top of his salary, for “doing his job”, which mostly consists of harassing his employees and golfing in Scotland. 

So no, Alex doesn't feel like he won. He's tired. He's angry. He can’t even call out the people in charge of making these decisions because the judge did, in fact, make the company give his client a settlement, not because he sees their value and right to exist, but because he can’t be labelled a bigot. But he won, whatever that means anymore. On the back of his mind a voice whispers _'you didn't do enough'._

Frankly, he wants to go home, hug Henry and cry into a tub of ice cream, because his client is a good person, because they deserved more. He also wants to hide it from Henry, but he can't. He wishes he had some semblance of a poker face around Henry, but he doesn’t. They’ve been together too long to be able to hide their moods and having in mind how hard-headed they both are Alex counts that as one of his blessings.

Alex gets past the front door and pulls his tie from his pocket, he felt suffocated in the courtroom and as soon as the session was over and he had made it to the steps outside he undid the knot and stuffed it in there, he takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over the nearest chair and then carefully places his tie on top of it. There’s no reason to make his house as messy as his head feels. He takes a second to think it over and removes his belt, giving it the same treatment he gave his tie and kicks off his shoes for good measure too. He walks to the freezer and finds a tub of ice cream and then looks for the bottle of Cajeta he knows is somewhere in the kitchen and takes it with him to the couch. He likes to add as he goes, it’s a habit he’s developed since Henry learned how to make it because now they never run out. It’s Henry’s one success in the kitchen. Alex loves him an ungodly amount.

Henry gets home approximately, an hour and 40 minutes later, by then Alex has popped open the button on his slacks, finished, well he’s no Nora but he’d say a good eighty percent of the family size tub of ice cream and is about to watch eleven British people attempt to build three-dimensional scenes out of cookies. Well, ‘biscuits’. Whatever someone’s about to actually make a dragon you can eat, and he thinks that’s far more important, not to mention interesting, than discussing British vs American dialects. Henry walks up to the couch and gives Alex a sweet and short kiss, then he plops himself down next to him, steals the spoon from his hand, scops some ice cream into his mouth and says, “I can’t believe you started season five without me. This is betrayal at the highest level.”

And normally, normally Alex would have some kind of witty reply for him, today he just shifts closer to Henry’s body and rests his head on his shoulder, he’s tired.

Henry slips a hand into his curls and gently runs his fingers through them, “Is everything alright?”

Alex weighs his options. He can lie, he can tell the truth and he can bend it. If this were anyone else he’d go with one or three. But it’s Henry. So he takes a deep breath and tells him he feels a little worthless, he feels a little like every person he has ever represented could have gotten a better deal if only they’d had a different lawyer, that he’s tired and a little lost. He doesn’t want to quit. What he does is important and he likes doing it, he knows he makes a difference in people’s lives even if the difference doesn’t always have the impact Alex knows it should. It's just that today he doesn’t feel good about the quality of his work, and he’s angry at a multitude of things. The situations that make it so people need civil rights lawyers in the first goddamn place. The judges that only just manage to hide their thinly veiled prejudiced mentalities. And yes, he’s mad at himself for not doing better. 

By the time he’s done, Mary Berry is telling a contestant that she has a good structure to her design, despite having served them burnt biscuits. That’s a good representation of Alex’s mind right now: great structure! Everything is in its place and holding up nicely. It’s just such a shame all his cookies are fucking burnt.

Henry tries to tell him he’s being dramatic, which Alex supposes is a viable option; he’s self-aware. He says Alex knows that settlements are never that great even if they should be. He knows that a lot of judges are indeed bigots and the fact they don’t actually seem to want to give Alex’s clients and others in similar situations any kind of help is a reflection of their own skewed views and not of Alex’s clients worth, and Alex’s work by extent. That’s it’s okay to be tired. Henry’s tired all the time from seeing so many good kids in fucked situations, but those situations aren’t a reflection of them or of Henry’s work. Henry does his best, and he knows Alex does his too, at the end of the day that’s all they can do.

Somewhere inside his brain, there’s a neuron holding those words tight. The rest of them are busy wallowing. So Alex doesn’t give him much of a response. He mumbles an “I guess,” scoops up whatever ice cream hasn’t melted and stuffs it all in his mouth. Henry takes the tub and the now half-empty bottle of his homemade cajeta away. He comes back to the couch and presses a kiss to Alex’s forehead just as the next episode is starting and then starts walking towards their office. When Alex asks what he’s going to do Henry says, “I have an email to send.” 

**

By the time the episode is ending Henry has returned to the couch and he has the softest of smiles on his lips, he has his laptop with him. He’s leaning against the armrest of the couch so Alex can’t really see what email was so important he had to skip Bake Off, but Henry said something about finishing touches, so they’ll probably get to watch the next one together. Henry closes the laptop and places it on top of the coffee table at the same time as Alex’s phone vibrates next to him on the couch. It’s a notification for a new email. It’s on his spam account and he’s about to ignore it, but he sees who sent it and his eyes fly up to Henry, who is pointedly not looking at Alex. 

“What did you do?” He asks him.

Henry’s smile turns a mile wide, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Alex is suspicious, but he opens the email sent from Henry’s spam account regardless.

* * *

**Reminder**

From: [ princebutt@gmail.com ](mailto:princebutt@gmail.com)

To: [ hoedameron@gmail.com ](mailto:hoedameron@gmail.com)

_A,_

_It's been a while since I've had to reach you like this, but I think it's our only option right now. Please forgive me if I'm rusty, love, I really do just want to make you smile._

_There's this thing you do sometimes when you're about to fall asleep. You press your lips to the inside of my wrist. You do it so gently. It drives me mad. I can never tell if you mean to kiss the skin there, or if it just happens. But when you do it I feel as though my whole body ceases to exist but for those inches of skin you touch._

_There's something ludicrous about you holding my pulse on your lips, and somehow it makes perfect sense._

_I truly believe your lips are one of your finest features, mostly for the words that spill from them. And if my pulse keeps me alive then I’m glad your lips are the ones protecting it._

_In truth, I've never felt safer than when my back is pressed against your chest, and your arms wrapped around me while your warmth consumes me. And when I wake up and find you next to me warm, beautiful and real it never fails to render me speechless. You could have anyone in this world and you're there. In bed with me. You chose me, and it fills me. Takes up whatever air is left inside my atoms. You with your big, bright ideas. You with your loving, gentle heart._

_I know right now you don’t feel like any of this is true. I know that telling you the mere memory of the press of your lips to the inside of my wrist is all it takes to settle that perpetually lonely part inside of me won’t change the world we live in and that it won’t make it any fairer. But I can hope that knowing even now that I have you, all of you, you still never leave me, and that my mind doesn't dare leave you, and that knowing if it weren’t for you and your big heart then I may have never let myself believe I could do things for the right reasons, that I could have passions, that I could be real and not a collection of things someone made up about me, I can hope knowing this will remind you of the impact you can have in someone’s life._

_There’s no part of me that wonders if you’ve made an impression in the lives of every person you’ve represented. I know you have, even if you might not._

_So, please, believe me, sweetheart, when I tell you you’re not worthless. You’re the farthest thing from. You have a monumental journey planned. Sometimes that means being tired and lost too._

_Yours,_

_Henry_

_P.S. Alex Claremont-Diaz to Henry Fox-Moutchristen-Windsor, 2020:_

_You love so much bigger than yourself, bigger than everything. I can’t believe how lucky I am to even witness it - to be the one who gets to have it, and so much of it, is beyond luck and feels like fate._

* * *

By the time he’s done reading Henry has moved closer on the couch. Greatest idea he’s ever fucking had if Alex is being honest because he needs to kiss him right now and this removes the time he’d spend trying to reach him. Instead of all that he just finds the back of Henry’s neck and pulls him towards his mouth. He pours all his love into it. He kisses Henry deep and hard and hopes he knows exactly what it is. A ‘ _thank you_ ’, an ‘ _I love you_ ’, an ‘ _I couldn’t do any of this, any of it, without you_ ’. When he’s done he pushes their foreheads together, his eyes are wet, Henry’s hands come up to rub at his forearms, and Alex feels grounded. He knows who he is, what he wants, where he’s going and how he’ll get there. He thinks to himself, maybe feeling tired and lost every once in a while isn’t all that bad. Not if Henry’s the one by his side helping him rest and find his path again.

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell I have no concept of how american courts work?  
> also like I know Casey *has* won things for the book but can we like, make the number of things increase? writing these emails is hard af, *af*


End file.
